Germany's Oettinger: Turkish EU Accession Unlikely until Erdogan Goes

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Germany's European Commissioner told the Bild newspaper on Tuesday that Turkey would probably not join the European Union while Tayyip Erdogan was president.

Turkey began talks about joining the European Union in 2005 but has made little progress. The prospect of the country becoming an EU member worries many countries and relations have become more strained since a failed coup in July.

"It will probably be an issue for the period after Erdogan," Guenther Oettinger said in an interview with the newspaper, as reported by Reuters.

"Given the current conditions, accession is not realistic until well into the next decade," he said.

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said on Sunday he did not see Turkey joining the EU during his own political career, noting that the bloc would not be in a position to accept Turkey even if Ankara met all the entry requirements tomorrow.

In June, German lawmakers voted to label the 1915 mass killings of Armenians an act of genocide, infuriating Turkey, which rejects that view of the killings of Christian Armenians by Ottoman forces during World War One amounted to genocide.